SnowRider Online Magazine

Snowmobile racing needs racers to continue to be a viable sport. This may seem like a given, but it’s not. Traditionally, snowmobile racing has been a family sport, with sons and sometimes, daughters, taking over the machines when their moms and dads decided to hang up their gear.

There have been many remarkable family racing stories over the years, with these just a few:

The Wahl family - http://www.wahlracing.com/history/

Decker family, starting with Audrey & Dick - http://www.ishof.com/php/2001.php

Brothers, Curtis, Shawn, and Jeremy Crapo - http://ultimatesnowmobiler.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10495

However, there just don’t seem to be as many cousins, brothers, sons, and daughters coming up through the ranks these days. So how do race promoters and other interested stakeholders guarantee the future of the sport? No matter how great the organizations and the tracks, without sleds and drivers, things grind to a halt.

The Ski-Doo Freestyle Challenge aims to interest a few new youngsters and their families.

The Canadian Snowcross Racing Association (CRSA), along with support from a selection of Ski-Doo dealers, has started a program for the 2007-2008 racing season that will be a “big brother” to kids, aged 10 to 13 years, who want to learn more about snowmobile racing. Interested kids who have, of course, the support and permission of their families, can give racing a whirl.

Riders are provided with the loan of a full set of safety equipment and a Ski-Doo Freestyle snowmobile for practice and competition at a race event in Ontario. Volunteer “big brothers or sisters” who are pro racers, will provide one-on-one instruction for each new rider. At the end of the season one lucky new racer will win his Ski-Doo Freestyle sled.

Full details on the program are available at: http://www.snowcross.com/1/1_5_0.php

So, how will we judge the success of this program? This season, ten excited youngsters and their families will have a dream opportunity to get some hands-on professional training and track time. What will happen next year? Or even five years from now when those thirteen year-olds are eighteen, and able to find their own “ride?” Success might also be evaluated by how many other organizations and groups recognize the need to support up and coming young drivers–and start other types of mentoring programs.

by Linda Aksomitis,
Managing Editor for SnowRider Online Magazine
and www.guide2travel.ca

Snowmobiles aren’t intended to drive on roads. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use the same common sense we do behind the steering wheels of our cars. Snowmobiles go as fast or faster than our cars, but that doesn’t mean we should look at them as having on-off switches like a child’s toy. They do have throttle and brake levers, so drivers can control them.

I read all the time that snowmobiles are unsafe machines. It just isn’t true. Snowmobile related deaths are generally the result of unsafe drivers, not unsafe machines.

A SnowRider reader sent me the following picture taken on Lake Louise in Alaska.

It’s beautiful–isn’t it? In Churchill, Manitoba, I saw dozens of them, even more sculpted as the ice heaved up chunks of ice. There, they called them hummocks. However, the reader wasn’t commenting on them as a piece of art, but rather as an obstacle that could prove dangerous to snowmobile drivers leaving the marked trail across the lake and putting the throttle down. As snowmobilers we tend to think of lakes as wide-open flat things, providing places to ride as hard and fast as the machine will go. That isn’t, however, a logical assumption, anymore than driving as fast as your car will go on the highway is a realistic option.There are hazards. There are lumps, bumps, and hummocks.Do you know what kills the most snowmobilers? No. Well, it’s the least likely thing you can imagine–stationary objects. Read this incident report from Wisconsin on snowmobile deaths last winter (2006-2007). Twenty-six people lost their lives. Fifteen of those people hit trees, and one a river bank. If people in cars hit trees or buildings or parked vehicles on the edge of the road would we blame the car? No. Then, why do we blame the snowmobile?

The ten people who didn’t hit inanimate objects died the following ways: two went through the ice and drowned (one a nine year-old girl seatbelted into a two-seater snowmobile); one hit a barbed wire fence; three hit vehicles; three hit other snowmobiles; and one was in a single vehicle rollover.

Fourteen of those deaths, or 54%, had alchohol as a factor. Twenty-two of those fatalities, or 85%, were not wearing a Wisconsin safety-certified helmet. There is no magic age where snowmobilers drive safer–three of the fatalities were over 60.

We’re experienced drivers dying out here. Why? The majority of these people lost their lives running into something they should have been able to avoid. All of these people should still be alive.

Safe snowmobiling is a high priority.

by Linda Aksomitis,
Managing Editor for SnowRider Online Magazine
and www.guide2travel.ca